After three weeks of being very aware of every political conversation, and knowing that any time I was to converse with a local Burmese there was a good chance we were being surreptitiously eavesdropped by government agents (and I have been taking my paranoia medication), ensured that a late evening phone call to out hotel room caused us much anxiety.
After experiencing a crazy day of chaos in Myanmar’s capital, running with thousands of other Rangoon residents from gun fire and violent monk beatings, we were resting in our Chinese style hotel where we were barricaded for the night (martial law ensured no-one would leave their room after 9pm). However, an English journalist who we had met that day in the streets, comparing stories of the military crackdown, had somehow found us in our hotel, called our room, and was requesting an audience with us in the hotel bar.
How did he find us? How did he know our names? Did we really tell him where we were staying? Was he a government undercover agent? Did we speak too openly about our abhorrence for the Myanmar government? Were we in trouble?
As we descended to the lobby, I assured Tandi (not believing it myself) that everything would be ok.
After a beer, and some more discussion, Andrew, a journalist from Time Magazine, made a simple request. He asked us to take a DVD with video clips shot that day by a native Burman, of monks being beaten, people stoning military vehicles, and other crazy violence, to a BBC contact in Bangkok the next day. As of then, such footage hadn’t made it to the world with the closure of the internet and international phone calls (taking it to Bangkok by plane was the only way this footage would be able to be seen by the world). He believed that these images, if we would smuggle them out could really help the international community’s understanding of the crazy situation.
We were cowards.
After spending three weeks falling in love with a people whose gentle Buddhist nature, and warm and incredible hospitality had changed me as a person, I really wished that there was something that I could do to help. But, when confronted with that something – something that might endanger my life, I failed to be the person that I always thought I could be.
And as I snapped the DVD with my hands, as we drove through the streets to the airport, leaving the Burmese to their despotic government, I felt crumble that part of me – that bravery that I thought I had.
